Already and this is the daily This is the Daily ohs oh, now it makes sense.
Good morning and welcome to the Daily OS. It's Tuesday, the eighth of July. I'm Emma Gillespie.
I'm Lucy Tassel.
Late yesterday afternoon, a long awaited verdict was handed down in the mushroom murder trial of Aaron Patterson. A jury found Patterson guilty on all three charges of murder, which carries a maximum penalty of life imprisonment in Victoria, and she was also found guilty of attempted murder.
Pattison was charged after she served her estranged husband's relatives a beef Wellington lunch that included deathcap mushrooms. Prosecutors alleged she put them in the meal intentionally, while the defense argued it was a mistake. Today we'll update you on the latest in the trial, from verdict to sentencing, what led to this moment and what comes next.
Lucy, You, like many of us, have been following this case very closely over the last few months, even the last couple of years. It's been a prominent story in the Australian media landscape for some time. Now we finally have a verdict. Can you walk us through what happened in the case yesterday?
So yesterday afternoon we all got the news alert that the jury was finished their deliberations, which had taken about a week. They went into being sequestered. We'll explain that more later, but they went into deliberate last Monday, and so they had come to a verdict. Justice Christopher Biale presided over the reading of the verdict, which was delivered to a packed court room in the Latrobe Valley Magistrates Court, which is where all of this has taken place. In court,
there's differing accounts of Patterson's reaction. From the ABC, we heard that she showed little emotion. From nine we heard that she blinked a lot. That was kind of the main reaction that she showed. But certainly there wasn't a large emotional reaction.
When she heard those verdicts. Yes on those four charges.
Yes, when she was read the verdict and she was found guilty of three counts of murder. Those relate to the deaths of Don Patterson and Gail Patterson. That's her estranged husband, Simon's parents, and Heather Wilkinson, who is her a strange husband. Simon's aunt. And then of course there's the account of attempted murder that relates to Ian Wilkinson. That's Heather's husband, so Simon's uncle, and he survived the lunch.
Okay. So, as we've kind of touched on, this is a case that has captivated not just Australians but the world ye for quite some time now. We've discussed the details of it on the podcast, we've discussed the big updates from what ended up being a ten week hearing. But can you just give us a quick reminder of how we got here? Tell us about that fateful lunch.
Yeah, So for those who are unfamiliar, who might have forgotten the details in all of the information that's been presented during the trial. So Aaron Patterson invited five people over to lunch at her home in eastern Victoria and the town of Leanngatha in July twenty twenty three. So the people that she invited were her husband, Simon, so they were estranged but still very much legally married, his parents Don and Gale, and his aunt and uncle Heather
and Ian Wilkinson. The night before, Simon told erin via text that he wouldn't be attending. We saw those texts tended in court as evidence. Then the lunch went ahead anyway, So Don Gale, Heather, Ian and Erin they all sit down for a meal of beef wellington. So, for those who don't know, a beef wellington.
Is a log of beef.
It's coated in a mushroom paste called duk cell and then it's wrapped in pastry. Aaron made individual beef wellington's that differed from the recipe that she was using, which came from the recipe Tin Eats cookbook Dinner Yep, which is on the shelf probably in your home right now given iconic, yeah best selling cookbook. Now, that recipe calls for a single log. She chose to make individual slices.
Which we heard in court was because she couldn't find a piece of steak or beef that was big enough yea to make the log, so she made individual portions. That, of course then was contested over the weeks of this hearing.
Yes about whether or not she could have found her evidence was that she couldn't find it. She bought individual steaks. So following the lunch, Don Gaale, Heather and Ian all become extremely unwell Aaron gave evidence that she also became unwell. Her four guests or went to hospital. Erin then later went to hospital. Don and Gail and Heather died in hospital in the following days. Ian Wilkinson survived. He required a liver transplant, but he did live and he attended court.
And he was in hospital for a lengthy period.
Yes, you might have remembered the headlines around when he came out of hospital. That that was kind of the biggest development in that case in those later months of twenty twenty three until Erin herself was charged in November twenty twenty three.
And you mentioned there that Erin did go to hospital. What do we know about her condition? How was she physically after the lunch?
Yeah, she was not as sick as her guests. That is certainly not contested. She has given evidence that she was sick. So she said that she had been having diarrhea for days, took herself into the hospital to get some fluids, and that's when doctors told her, Oh, you are the person from this lunch that we've heard about. Everyone else who was there is really really critically ill and we're very worried about you. Did anyone else eat this.
She at that point said that her children had been given some of the meal, but that she'd scraped the mushrooms off because they don't like them, and they told her her kids needed to come into hospital. She pretty soon after checked herself out of hospital. She said that was to deal with some things at home, like letting out the dog, feeding the sheep that were in her paddock, and then she later returned to hospital. But yeah, there's
contested evidence about how sick she actually was. It's certainly clear that she didn't need a liver transplant, She didn't need as much care as the others. One of the reasons she gave for why that might be the case is that she had a history of disordered eating, and she said that she had binged and then thrown up some of the food from the lunch. She suggested that might be or rather the defense suggested that might be why she wasn't as sick because it wasn't in her system for as long.
Okay, so that paints a little bit of a picture of the defense, which we'll go into more shortly. But what was the prosecution's case against Patterson, Because obviously this is ultimately the successful argument.
Yeah, Yeah, it's kind of strange to be thinking about that now. I feel like for the entire length of the trial. It's obviously as responsible journalists you have to be incredibly careful about what you say about a case while it's still in the court, at risk of prejudicing the jury. But yeah, it feels strange now to be able to say one side has definitively exactly. I mean, there could still be an appeal, but that's.
We We will get to that.
We'll get to that. Sorry, jumping ahead of myself. The prosecution argument, which, as you said, has now been found by the jury to be the more convincing. One. Prosecutors argued Patterson to really put death cat mushrooms in the
beef Wellington to kill her guests. They painted a picture of a woman who had two faces, a polite face to her in laws in person and her real face speaking to her Facebook friends online, expressing frustration about her in law's role in her relationship with her estranged husband, which had been cooling in recent years despite many years of amicable separation. Okay, doctor Nannette Rodgers, she's the prosecutor,
She told the jury. Patterson had research deathcat mushrooms online and purchased a dehydrator a food dehydrator to prepare them. The prosecution presented evidence that Pattison lied repeatedly to police about whether or not she foraged and whether or not she had a dehydrator, and they also highlighted that Patterson had thrown away the dehydrator at the tip just two days before her police interview, which you probably have seen the CCTV footage of.
Yeah, a lot was said about where the mushrooms came from, whether or not she'd foraged them herself, whether or not she'd purchased them from an Asian grosser, whether they were in her pantry for a long period of time, and she accidentally had death.
Caps, which was the defense argument.
Yeah, exactly. So tell me a little bit more about the defense argument.
Yeah, So, Pattison admitted on the stand that she had foraged for mushrooms and then stored them in a tupperware container. The defense's argument and her argument, was that if death caps were mixed in, which she admitted was possible, it was just a tragic accident, that she had never intentionally foraged for poisonous mushrooms, and that they're ending up in the meal, which she said was to add flavor to the mushroom paste. The foraged mushrooms was just a mistake.
And I mentioned there that she took the stand, as we would know, that's a very rare thing in court cases.
Yeah, I remember this case really taking a sharp turn when we she earned that Aaron Patterson would be taking the stand as witness to give testimony in her own trial. She provided evidence over a period of several days.
Yeah, what was it?
Key learnings and revelations from that time.
The biggest one for me that I was safe to say the most surprised to see someone admit on the stand was Aaron admitted to telling several lies during her original police interview. So we've touched on the foraging and the dehydrator, so she lied. She told them she had never foraged for mushrooms and that she didn't own a dehydrator. I suppose that one sort of a half truth because she at that moment did not own a dehydrator because it was in the local tip, but she had owned
one until days earlier. On the stand, she also admitted to misleading her guests about having cancer. She told the court she wanted their support, but had never actually been diagnosed with cancer. But she said that she kind of led them to believe that that was the case because she was seeking their support in coming weeks, because she said she was thinking about getting gastric banding surgery to assist with weight loss.
And that during the recovery period she would need additional family support with the kids, etc.
So she said she was just alighting the actual requirement for that support.
Okay, there was, of course an extensive list of lies that were dissected, explained, re prosecuted during that testimony. We did a whole podcast episode on that which actually you led Lucy expertly, super super interesting. We will pop link to that in the show notes if you want to hear more. But we must move on or we'll spend all day talking about the fascinating developments from that trial.
But after what ended up being ten weeks of hearings, the judge finally gave quite extensive instructions to the jury over several days before they began deliberations last week. What are the key updates from that time? What do we need to know?
I think the biggest one to know is that Justice Beale said Patterson needs to be presumed innocent until she's proven guilty, and that the jury are the only ones who can decide whether the prosecution has quote proven their case beyond a reasonable doubt. Now, that's the threshold in
criminal cases. You've probably heard us on this podcast before talk about how in civil cases it's a lower standard of proof, which is on the balance of probabilities, is it more likely than not that something happened or didn't happen. But in a criminal case, it's you have to not have any reasonable doubt in your mind that something occurred the way that the prosecution presented it as happening. If you have a reasonable doubt, you can't find a person guilty of a crime.
So it's like being ninety to one hundred percent sure of something versus being fifty one percent sure of something.
It's not even ninety it has to be one hundred that you have to be. Well, certainly, I mean that's what the defense said, right, But I think that is also a legal principle that you can't have a doubt.
Yeah, So the jury had fifteen members throughout the trial. We know that there were not fifteen jurors on the stand yesterday when they came back into the court to hand down their verdict. What was that process.
So one DURA was dismissed during the trial. It was reported they had been discussing the trial with their family members, which is not allowed. Yep, jurors weren't sequestered. They weren't kept separate from the rest of the world during the trial, which is also partly why we have to be careful in the media in terms of accidentally saying something that could come across a juror's path that could influence their
decision making. So we were down to fourteen, and then last week before the d began deliberating, two more were dismissed. So the court system takes in more duras than will actually make the.
Decision, particularly in a high profile case like this.
Yeah, in case of illness or family emergency, any of the reasons why people might not be able to complete the full trial. So two were dismissed and then the final twelve went on to They were then sequestered, which means that they were kept separate from the rest of the world, didn't go home for the days that they were deliberating, were taken probably to a hotel, no media, no phone, only the case and the deliberations every day.
So they were essentially put into a lockdown bubble of this jury where they had no communication with the outside world, no access to any communication devices. It was you will stay together until you can reach a decision.
Yes, and that had to be a unanimous decision, and we now know a unanimous verdict of guilt on all four charges.
So tell me how it all unfolded on Monday. On Monday afternoon we got the news. The newsroom here at the Daily Os was ready to go. We've been waiting for a while for this one. What charges specifically has Aaron Patterson been found guilty of?
So there's three. So there's account of murder of Don Patterson, account of murder of Gail Patterson, account of murder of Heather Wilkinson, and then another one of attempted murder for Ian Wilkinson, who survived. That's about all we know in terms of the juries, thinking that they collectively found Aaron
Patterson responsible beyond a reasonable doubt. Australian jurors are not allowed to speak in the media about their decision making and we will never know what was discussed in the jury room.
Okay, so just to recap lucy, we've got three charges of murder. Aaron Patterson has been found guilty of ye one count of attempted murder guilty. Also, that's the disease there. What happens now?
So Erin is remanded in custody, she's awaiting being sentenced. We don't yet know when she will be sentenced, okay, and.
That decision will be up to the judge. The jury are dismissed.
Yep, that's it. The jury's jobs are done. They go back to their lives. I mean, imagine just going back to work tomorrow knowing that you couldn't talk about it. Yeah, but yes, So basically, at this point, it's the legal system takes over the prosecution. The defense makes submissions about what they think the sentence should be. Okay, the maximum sentence for murder is life. It's we just don't know, okay, it's going to pan out there, But we know that
Erin is in custody. We also know that the next time she appears in court will be for victim impact statements.
What does that mean?
So that means that the people who have been affected by what a jury has now found were Erin's actions will be able to speak to the court, to the judge, and to Erin herself about the impact that this has had on them. So I imagine we'll be hearing from the families of well, yeah, I guess once upon a time Erin's family, right, Erin's extended family, probably from Ian Wilkinson.
I'm just speculating, but I imagine when you think of the people who've been affected, Don and Gale's other grandchildren, Heber and Ian's grandchildren and children. Yep, yeah, we will be hearing from them before sentencing is decided.
That will be fascinating and we will keep an eye on that. As Lucy said, the sentencing date is yet to be set, but the murder charge in Victoria carries life imprisonment, which is typically twenty five years. Attempted murder also carries a maximum sentence of twenty five years, so on maths alone, we're looking at a very very lengthy
prison sentence for Aaron Patterson. Lucy, thank you so much for taking us through that, and thank you over the course of these hearings for breaking it all down for us and helping us get our heads around such a complicated case, that's all we've got time for on today's episode. We will be back later this afternoon with your latest evening news headlines, but until then, have a great day.
My name is Lily Maddon and I'm a proud Arunda Bunjelung Calkatin woman from Gadighl Country. The Daily oz acknowledges that this podcast is recorded on the lands of the Gadighl people and pays respect to all Aboriginal and Torres Strait Island and nations. We pay our respects to the first peoples of these countries, both past and present.